


three for the secret nobody knows

by Tyleet



Category: Revenge (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 05:12:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1052897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyleet/pseuds/Tyleet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here are the things Jack knows for sure: the sun rises in the east, Nolan Ross is bad news, and he is in love with either Amanda Clarke or Emily Thorne. Until the day he dies he will not know which.</p>
            </blockquote>





	three for the secret nobody knows

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of lines of dialogue have been lifted directly from canon--so if something looks familiar, that's why. Warnings for pregnant sex, dubcon dirty talk, and eventual canon character death. 
> 
> Thanks so much to velvet-midnight for the beta, and for always being up to talk about evil blonde murder twins. <3
> 
> Please do not copy or repost my work on any other site, even if it is credited under my name. I do not give permission to have my work hosted on any site except AO3.

Here are the things Jack knows for sure: the sun rises in the east, Nolan Ross is bad news, and he is in love with either Amanda Clarke or Emily Thorne. Until the day he dies he will not know which. 

*

"So tell me about this boat," the stranger says to Declan in an interested drawl, long thin body angled towards Jack's little brother like an invitation.

"It's mine," Jack says, stepping forward, careful to let just the right amount of disgust into his voice. At fourteen, Declan probably knows the type: rich and entitled enough to treat Montauk as an extension of his personal playground, where any taste can be accommodated. But he's still Jack's little brother, and Jack doesn't have a lot of respect for rich men trawling for poor boys, anyway.

" _Is_ it," the stranger says with an odd smile. "Does that make you Jack Porter?"

"Who wants to know?" Jack asks, feeling off-balance and not knowing why. He gives Declan a look, and his brother mumbles an excuse and heads back to the bar.

"Nolan Ross," the stranger says, and extends a large, delicate hand that Jack doesn't take. After a minute, he draws it back to smooth a hand down his ridiculous lavender shorts. "So, why _The Amanda_?"

 "Why the interest in my boat?" Jack asks.

Nolan Ross puts both of his hands in the air, a gesture of surrender. "Just curious," he says. "I'm not the biggest fan of the ocean, so I have a certain--admiration for things that don't sink."

"You know we're on an island," Jack says. "Not exactly the place for someone who's scared of the water."

"Come on, sailor," Nolan says with another smile, his eyes half-lidded, "Haven't you ever wanted something that scares you?"

"Not really," Jack says flatly. "Fascinating as this conversation is, Mr. Ross, I have to get back to work."

 "Nolan's fine," Nolan calls out as Jack walks away, sounding uncomfortably smug. "I'll see you around, Jack Porter." 

No, you won't, Jack thinks.

*

Only then, of course, two years pass and Jack's father dies and the bar is going under and Nolan Ross is there, awkward and blonde-haired, asking if he can pay Jack to be his friend.

Jack accepts, because he doesn't know what else to do.

"Have you ever been in love?" Nolan asks him, their first day out on the boat. He's staying away from the railing, looking distinctly green.

Jack can feel his face darkening, and Nolan smirks.

"Idle curiosity, Captain Porter. I have no designs on your virtue. Pinky swear."

 Jack can't help the eye roll he gives in reply. "Less idleness. More paying attention."

"Whatever you say," Nolan says, and tips his sailor cap down over his eyes.

Jack hasn't been in love. Not really. He came close, a couple times--he was about a week away from asking Erica to marry him when he was nineteen, before she decided she was better off in California--but in retrospect that was the worst idea he's ever had, so. No, he doesn't think so.

Nevertheless, these are the facts:  his boat is named _The Amanda_ , he has a jar full of bright blue sea-glass in the closet in his room, and the dog Amanda named is still alive and at his side, thanks to years of care and two expensive surgeries. He's willing to admit that there will always be a nine-year old girl ghosting around the edges of his dreams--it's not like she stops him from living his life, after all.

 And then Sammy launches himself at a beautiful blonde stranger, and gets mud all over her dress.

There's no reason for Jack to feel like he's the one who's been bowled over, but he does. 

 Emily is everything he's never wanted from a woman: wealthy and delicate and dripping privilege. She's polite but distant, beautiful but reserved. She looks out of place in Montauk in the way that certain rich people do, too yellow and fragile for men like Jack. She's dating _Daniel Grayson_ , for Christ's sake. He should have backed off as soon as she brushed him off the first time. He knows that.

But something keeps pulling him back to her, keeps telling him not to give up, because whatever's hiding behind Emily's careful smile is worth it. 

Or maybe that's just Nolan.

"Jack and Emily sitting in a tree," Nolan says with raised eyebrows, the first time he sees them together. He knows Emily, because of course he does. They have the kind of guarded banter that comes with a long acquaintance, if not friendship. Probably not friendship, since Nolan has to pay for that.

"Really?" Jack asks, and he can just see the yellow twist of her hair as she walks away.

"Kinda," Nolan says, but in this strange voice, half amused and half--something else. _Crushed,_ Jack's mind supplies helpfully, and he sighs. He doesn't want to pull out another version of the I'm-straight-and-definitely-not-interested talk, but he will if he has to--only then Nolan surprises him again, and drags him to Emily's house for a surprise party.

Emily's living in Amanda Clarke's old house. Of course, Jack thinks grimly, and pretends it doesn't get at that old, still-sore part of his heart, another blonde girl with a perfect smile slotting so neatly into that empty space.

He finds her alone outside at her own party, looking out to sea. He looks at her bare back in the moonlight, at her small hand curved over the porch railing, and is shocked by the ache that opens up in his chest. She turns to him and smiles, but he's suddenly sure it doesn't reach her eyes.

He's never wanted someone like this before, and he can't even tell _why_. Well. His dog loves her, and she's sweet, generous, unfailingly kind, and invites Nolan Ross to all her parties, which must mean she's a _saint._ But the more time he spends with her, the more certain he is that he doesn't know her at all, and the mystery tugs at him. Something about her cool, whispering voice, her careful smiles.

*

"Am I being creepy?" he asks Nolan, the next time he gets a chance. It's late, and Nolan's almost the last customer in the Stowaway, bright blonde head resting against the bar like that's where he belongs. "Seriously, I don't want to be the guy who keeps hearing 'yes' when she's saying 'no'. I have this really strong feeling about it, like it's not just me, but she hasn't said anything, so, honestly. Am I being creepy?"

He realizes who he's talking to as soon as Nolan laughs. Nolan doesn't see a problem flirting with sixteen year olds, so long as it doesn't go anywhere. At least Jack hopes it never goes anywhere, and privately thanks god that Declan's as straight as they come. If there's a reigning king of creepy, Nolan's probably it.

"Come on," Nolan says, not lifting his head up from the bar, looking warm and amused. "Creepy? You? You're the last decent person in the Hamptons, my friend."

"Except for Emily," Jack corrects him, automatically.

 Nolan smiles, long-fingered hand curling around his drink. "Sure. Except for Emily."

*

He watches her and Nolan talking together at the bar, from across the room. He thinks that maybe he was wrong, and they really are friends--they drift toward each other in any given room, and Nolan gets a kind of sincerity to his smiles that isn't usually there, like he's laughing with Emily instead of at her. They have an uncomfortable habit of talking about Jack like he isn't there, even when he is.

She looks just as bright and perfect as always, leaning against the bar. There's a curve to her lips that says she's on the verge of laughter, and she tosses her bright hair back over her shoulders, resettling herself. With a low thrill, he sees her mouth form the word _Jack_ , before collapsing back into a smile. Maybe he isn't imagining things after all.

Only then he looks at Nolan. Nolan Ross, Jack knows from long, aggravating experience, is the kind of guy who takes the worst kind of insults and threats with a smirk and a leer, and whatever Emily Thorne just whispered to him made him _flinch_.

"What were you and Emily talking about last night?" Jack asks the next day, teaching Nolan how to sail his boat. 

"You, big boy," Nolan says lazily. He's doing a better job of sunning himself than learning how to tie up the _Amanda_ at dock, but that's what Jack's resigned himself to expect from these lessons: Nolan lounging on deck like a yellow cat in a candy-colored shirt while Jack gives useless, pointless lectures.

"Seriously," Jack says, looking at Nolan carefully. "You looked kinda upset about something."

Nolan's smile doesn't falter. "Aww, Mr. Porter. I didn't know you cared."

 * 

Eventually he tells Emily how he feels. For just a second, she looks completely wrecked. Later, he'll think he imagined it.

She tells him with what sounds like genuine sincerity that she wants to stay friends.

"Sorry," Nolan says, and he looks genuinely sincere, too, pushing back the registration for _The Amanda_. "I honestly didn't know."

Jack believes them both. This is, of course, a mistake. 

*

See, when Jack was a kid, he had this crush. This big, impossible, life-changing crush that he had no business feeling when he was that young. What he remembers about her is blonde hair, a broad smile, and this careless way she had of completely trusting him. She could swim farther out than anyone he knew, could turn something as stupid as collecting sea glass into the kind of story that made him laugh and feel a weird sadness tug behind  his ribs, all at the same time. She never minded sharing Sammy's leash with Jack, and she joked with the kind of sharpness that Jack's dad would call being a smartass and Amanda's dad called being a smart alec. So maybe he did love her. Maybe that's what that feeling was.

And then her dad was arrested for killing all those people, and Amanda wasn't the girl who lived in the clear white house under Grayson Manor, she was a name everybody spoke in strained whispers. "That poor kid," Jack heard his dad telling a customer, meaning Amanda. "Her old man was a monster, sure, but you should have seen the way those people were with her. I don't even want to think about what her life's like now."

If all it had been was a childhood crush, Jack would have gotten over it. He would have. He's sure. As it was, Jack never really worked out how to let Amanda go, even years down the line, after it crossed over the line from cute to pathetic. 

He'd rationalized it to himself later as a fumbling, teenage way of protecting himself from getting too serious with girls. After all, how could any real girl compare to the tragedy of losing Amanda Clarke? The girl he'd wanted really badly to kiss but never had, the girl who'd given him her dog and was taken away by stern people in dull clothing, sobbing her heart out and promising that she'd come back.

He used to daydream about it, mainly in high school: a beautiful blonde girl, slightly older, would walk into the Stowaway, and he would know her immediately, and as soon as she saw him she would smile, bright and huge. He'd take her out on the boat he named for her, and he'd tell her he'd kept his promise, that Sammy was hers again, and she'd tell him that she'd kept her promise, and come back. No one would be looking for them, and she would whisper "I love you," like the secret she'd given him under the boardwalk when she was nine, before running away, out into the sun. She wouldn't make him feel the way Erica did, like he was clumsy and useless, like there was something he was missing. With Amanda, he would know what to say, how to say it. He'd kiss her, and she'd taste like summer, like cool sea-glass against his lips, like a perfect promise. But it was just a dream. Jack knew it was stupid even at the time.

As it turns out, it happens pretty much like that.

*

Amanda Clarke comes back into his life like a hurricane, wide-eyed and devastating, out of control, and Jack doesn't get his breath back for a year.

One minute she's just a girl, hot and obviously into him, maybe a way to get over the pull he still feels towards Emily Thorne, and then she's crying and smiling and telling him she's everything he's ever wanted.

Jack can't even deal with how he feels about that. On the one hand, every protective instinct he has is roaring to the surface, because she left in trouble and she's back with more of the same, looking even more vulnerable now than she had at nine years old, if that's possible. "Nobody's ever been so nice to me," she says with blank surprise after he flirts with her for a night before taking her out for a day trip on the boat. He wants to punish whoever made her feel this way. He wants to know all of the ways that the world has hurt this girl, and then he wants to pay it all back, wants to keep her safe the same way he wanted as a kid. 

On the other hand, Amanda is back, which means Amanda is _real,_ and it's unbelievably hard to reconcile how important she's been in his head and his memories with an actual person, smiling in front of him in a ripped T-shirt and tiny denim shorts. He fights hard to keep it from being a disappointment. If measuring the girls he dated as a teenager against his imaginary Amanda was unfair, measuring Amanda against his memories is criminal. He does his best to let her know he's here for her, that he's willing to be everything that he promised her. 

*

Nolan doesn't like her. Which would be surprising, since he met her at Nolan's house, but Jack's given up being surprised by Nolan Ross.

"She's--" Nolan breaks off, sighs. "Jack, is she really your type?"

 "Of course she's my type," Jack says, annoyed. She's _Amanda_. She _defined_ his type.

 "Huh," Nolan says. He sends off a text on his phone. "Okay. So, tell me this," he leans in, unusually serious, folding the phone into his hands and out of sight. Jack is suddenly very aware that Nolan's eyes are a weird, pure blue. "Are you in love with her?"

 Jack is briefly paralyzed by the question, but then he clues into the fact that Nolan really is much closer than usual, that his lips are just barely parted, that one of his long white hands is this close to caressing Jack's arm instead of Nolan's own.

 Jack leans back, unsubtly. "Yeah," he says. "I think I might be."

 "What about Emily?" Nolan asks, in the tone of voice that actually makes Jack wonder for a second, like Nolan can't imagine anyone giving up on Emily Thorne. Can't imagine anyone _wanting_ to.

 "I'm not gonna wait around for someone who isn't into me," Jack says pointedly, and gets up.

*

And if Emily's hold on him doesn't lessen any, he tells himself it will. Amanda presses her full, soft mouth into the palm of his hand, and he tells himself furiously that he's not going to let her down. She's been let down too many times before.

It helps that she's beautiful. She has the same messy blonde hair that he remembers, and it feels good to wrap his fingers in it, kiss the crown of her yellow head. She has a gorgeous body, and she's so eager to wrap herself around him, pull him down on top of her, look up at him with wet, desperate eyes.

"Do you love me?" she asks him abruptly in the middle of their first night together.

They've known each other for less than a week, as adults. "I do," he says, honesty wrenched out of him without his consent.

"Tell me you love me," she says, selfish and sweet and tangling him all up in her, her hands in his hair and her legs around his hips, pressing trembling kisses to the curve of his neck.

 "I love you, Amanda," he says, rough and tender, and she shudders.

"Amanda," he says again, later.

 "Jack," she says back, and it somehow feels like a promise.

 *

Emily and Amanda get along surprisingly well. They really shouldn't. Emily is cool organization, irreproachable and perfect, Amanda's all rage and whimsy, a beautiful mess. Add to that the part where Emily's an almost-ex and Amanda's somehow picked up on that, is broadcasting jealousy as loudly as she broadcasts everything else, and Jack would have put money on them hating each other. But somehow it doesn't work out like that--Emily starts coming to the bar to see Amanda, instead of Jack, and Amanda starts going up to her old house to see Emily.

Nolan remains languorously disapproving, and that's comforting, in a way. Makes him feel less like the people in his life are conspiring together.

 "What is Nolan Ross's deal with you?" Amanda mutters under her breath one night, when Nolan leaves the bar last again, drunk and loose-limbed.

 Jack shrugs. "He's a friend," he says, and is surprised to realize that it's the truth.

 "He's Emily's friend," Amanda corrects him absently, a dark look crossing her face. That's the first time it occurs to Jack to wonder if maybe the blatant dislike is just jealousy, after all. Nolan has two friends in the world, as far as Jack can tell, and Amanda's gotten close to both of them, really quickly.

 "And mine," Jack says firmly, and grins when she looks at him sideways. "You really, really don't need to be jealous," he says, amused, and that gets her to laugh, finally.

*

Emily hires him to cater Daniel Grayson's birthday party. A month ago, Jack would have been bitter about that, but he has Amanda now, so he can't be.

It's as uncomfortable and weird as he expected--it always is, around the Graysons--but it quickly spirals into something out of a horror movie.

Emily walking down the beach carrying a lit birthday cake, white-faced, and a madman with a gun behind her.

 Tyler Barrol isn't somebody Jack gave a whole lot of thought to, before, but now he's red-faced and violent, making no sense at all, and he has a gun, and he's pressing it to _Emily's head,_ and Jack's never been so terrified in his entire life.

And then Nolan's there with a strange man--Tyler's brother, trying to talk him down--and Nolan's  bruised and covered in blood, and suddenly Jack's not just terrified, he's _furious_ , and that propels him into action. As soon as the gun isn't pointing at Emily's head he throws himself at Tyler, wrestles the gun away, and there are at least three voices calling his name. 

That's when the police show up. It takes a little while for Jack to come down from the adrenaline rush, but when he does Amanda's hanging off his shoulder, and god, he'd forgotten about her.

"Are you okay?" she's saying, her voice unsteady, and he reassures her automatically, his hand coming up to cover her shoulders.

He looks around, instinctively knowing if he sees one the other will be there, and there they are, standing together by the police tape. Nolan bloodied, her the girl with a gun to her head for most of the night. They aren't touching. They don't even look all that shaken.

Emily says something, too quiet and far away to hear, and Nolan gives her an indescribable look--almost a smirk, if smirks could hold that much fear, and that much lust. Jack's heart is pounding way too fast, and he can't look away, even though he should.

"I'm so glad you're okay," Amanda says into his shoulder, and it's like she's broken a spell: Jack looks away, startled back into breathing, and when he looks back, Nolan is walking towards Victoria's PA and Emily is curled into Daniel Grayson's side. Like whatever he saw was a glitch, and now reality is rushing back in, seamless and unquestionable.

"Me too," Jack says, and leans into the real, solid warmth of her.

* 

He asks Emily if she's really okay, the next time he sees her.

"I'm fine," she says, quietly. "Nolan's the one I'm worried about--he's pretty shaken up still."

"He seemed to be handling it pretty well that night," Jack says as casually as he can.

Emily shakes her head slightly, looking distantly concerned. "Adrenaline, I guess." She looks at him with sad brown eyes, and the next thing he knows they're talking about Sammy and Declan and how he feels about a new school, because for how hard Jack tries, he really isn't a match for Emily Thorne when she doesn't want to talk about something.

He ends up calling Nolan, instead.

"Emily says you're not doing so hot," he says over the phone, still thinking about her expressionless face and the want in Nolan's. Whatever secret it is he's missing. "You want to talk about it?"

"Emily should mind her own business," Nolan replies, annoyed and obviously a little drunk. "And I think I deserve a few nights of private alcoholism after having my lover tie me to a chair and slice me up a little." 

"Wow," Jack says. Right: Nolan Ross, full of surprises. He should try to remember that. "I guess you do want to talk about it."

Nolan complains for a little while longer, and Jack hangs up. Resolutely doesn't think about it.

*

It's weeks later, and Ashley Davenport is getting drunk at his bar with Nolan. She makes it quite clear that she's slumming, which Nolan seems to find entertaining, at least. Jack drifts in and out of their conversation, tending bar, so he only catches the tail end of her current rant about her job.

"--and all I've got to show for my summer with the Graysons is a gun-wielding psychotic ex boyfriend who made out with _you_ \--" she says accusingly, and Nolan ducks his head to hide his smile. Jack grins.

Ashley's continuing. "Meanwhile, Emily gets an engagement ring and the keys to the kingdom."

Jack freezes, even though he shouldn't.

"And--Emily--said yes?" Nolan stutters, uncharacteristically clumsy. His eyes are wide, and Jack thinks weirdly that this isn't fair, that Nolan, at least, should have heard about this from Emily.

Ashley gives him a look, and gets up to walk unsteadily to the bathroom. 

Jack is pouring a drink, but keeps his eyes on Nolan: Nolan, who buries his face in his hands for a brief instant before dragging his hands back down to the tabletop, like it takes effort.

"Did I hear that right?" he asks, trying for casual.

"…I'm afraid you did," Nolan replies, almost sympathetically. Like Jack didn't just see his face.

Jack shakes his head, and lets Nolan take whatever meaning from that he wants.

*

And then someone breaks into Jack's house, and he gets the living shit kicked out of him, and when he wakes up, Amanda's gone and nothing makes any sense.

All at once the world narrows right back down to Amanda, to Amanda's more serious, more terrifying mysteries, to Amanda gone, _again_. She's gone and he can't find her, but he does find a tape that chills him more than anything else: Amanda the child he remembers, staring out hollow-eyed at Mason Treadwell, whose house was burnt down the same day Amanda dragged him to Atlantic CIty, spilling out tortured, ancient secrets.

Jack doesn't know how to handle how this feels. He doesn't know how to handle the realization that as close as he was, he might have never known Amanda at all.

* 

Haiti is waiting. It's been waiting since before his dad died. With Amanda gone, with Emily getting married, it seems--right. Like the only option.

He takes Sammy to Emily. It feels like the right choice--returning Sammy to the right house, even if it is to the wrong girl.

Nolan's there, and that seems right, too: two sets of sad eyes, two yellow heads in the sun hitting Amanda's porch, two sets of razor attention.

"Take care of yourself, Jack," she says, cool as always--but her eyes say something different. Nolan hugs him, pressing just a little too close. 

He's going to miss them, Jack realizes with a funny pang. Both of them.

*

He's literally pulling out of the harbor when Amanda comes back. Running onto the dock, frantic and out of breath.

No, he thinks wildly, No, this isn’t right.

But she's warm and weeping in his arms, and he loves her so much it hurts, and he'd do anything for her, he always would.

Even when she disappears again and he realizes with a cold chill that she was bleeding. 

Even when he follows her to the Grayson's private beach and sees her kneeling over a man facedown in the sand, her eyes wide and uncomprehending.

Even when she leaves without a second thought, when he tells her to run.

She's Amanda. He'd do anything, he realizes again, dragging a corpse up the beach, warm blood on his hands. Anything. 

*

It's possible that Declan's right, and Jack has always had a tendency towards martyrdom.

He thinks of being twelve, holding a struggling Sammy tight while they took Amanda away, crying like her heart was breaking. He remembers thinking, with brutal clarity, that he would take her place in a heartbeat if he could.

He feels bad about it, but sitting drunk in his father's bedroom, lights off and his own bloody sweatshirt in his hands, he thinks maybe everything that's gone wrong in his life he can lay at Amanda's feet.

*

It was Tyler Barrol that was murdered. Tyler, the man who slept with Nolan and then hurt him, the man who pointed a gun at Emily's head. Jack's not really sorry he's dead, but. There are worse people it could have happened to.

Amanda's gone again, and it feels like he's living in a conspiracy thriller. Why would Amanda kill Tyler Barrol? Because of what he'd said at that party, about her father? Where is she, if she's not in Canada with the impossible money? He _needs_ to see Amanda, and he can't find her, and it all feels so familiar, and the hopelessness gets under his skin, makes him itch with the need to fix it.

Declan's a mess, too, and Jack's reminded that he's not a fitting guardian, that he can't keep this seventeen year old kid from feeling like he has to protect him, can't keep his baby brother from lying to the police for Jack's sake. For Amanda's sake. The shame pushes him out of the Stowaway, out of Montauk, out of New York altogether, driving towards Canada, checking hotel ledgers, following a trail that may or may not exist.  

Jack is sick with this feeling: knowing that he's missing something, that the world has gone deadly wrong, but not knowing why.

It takes him all the way to Canada and three strung-out voicemails from Declan before he gives up.

"That's it," he says aloud to the steering wheel, white lines flying behind him. "I'm done."

He points the car back to the Hamptons, and tells himself this is the last time he'll give everything up for Amanda Clarke. 

He's wrong, as usual.

*

Nolan seems happy that he's back. Emily and Daniel are quite obviously having problems, which Jack feels absolutely no guilt about exploiting.

"Got your senses back, huh?" Nolan asks him, nodding at Emily with a sly smile.

"Maybe," Jack says, hope an uncertain lightness in his chest. "We'll see."

He feels tentatively confident that he made the right call. No more ghosts.

Only then Sammy dies on Emily's living room floor, and that feels like the last straw, the final thing tying him to Amanda, and he's crying from relief as much as from sorrow, because he _loved_ that dog, and he loved that girl, and now they're both gone.

Emily's crying too, messy and real like he always thought she was underneath her smile, and he understands somehow that she's crying for something besides the dog, too, and he feels a rush of tenderness for her red face and crumpled mouth, for the living girl she somehow suddenly is.  

It feels like the most natural thing in the world to gather her face in his hands and kiss her, and she's sad and perfect and her face is wet against his, and she kisses him back like she's been dying to kiss him for as long as he's been dying to kiss her, like she's wanted this for _years_ , like somehow Jack has too, and she makes a small sweet sound into Jack's mouth and it's like he can feel the future right there between them, unfurling bright and new and happy, right there on the living room floor. 

"What are we doing?" he asks her softly, in the moonlight, on the beach, his dog's grave between them. 

"I don't know," she replies, but she looks at him like they both know what the answer is.

*

He calls Emily the next morning, but she doesn't pick up.

Nolan doesn't pick up either.

*

He doesn't hear back from her until the next day, but it goes well--she sounds quiet but happy. She tells him she's found Sammy's collar, and she wants to bring it by later.

"I can't think of anything I'd like more," he says with complete honesty. He can just hear Nolan's voice in the background, and he smiles. "I'm here, so. Come by whenever you're ready."

"I will," she says, and he thinks maybe she's smiling, too.

Then the door to the bar opens, and Amanda walks inside.

*

It feels like he should have expected it.

"Jack," she says, and her eyes fill with tears, and his arms open up automatically, and she fills them. She's wearing a long red coat, bulkier than the weather really calls for, and she feels different--but he doesn't think about that.

"I'm so sorry," she's whispering, and he shouldn't fall for this, he shouldn't, but he is, because he is Jack Porter and he loves Amanda Clarke and he doesn't know who he'd be without that love.

"Can we--can we go somewhere and talk?" she asks him, so desperate, so scared he'll say no.

He closes the bar. They go to _The Amanda_ , and he isn't sure if he wants to stay away from an audience or if he wants to make sure she can't run away, but he takes the boat out of the harbor, into open water, Amanda silent and imploring at his side.

"You're gonna need to explain," he says finally. "You're going to need to explain everything to me, because I don't understand, Amanda. Anything that's been happening." 

"I can't," she whispers, and that's too much.

"Then _I_ can't," he tells her, and his voice shakes. "I--you left me in the middle of a _murder_ investigation, I have fucked up my life and--and _Declan's_ life for you, and you won't even tell me what happened to--" he has to stop, unsure how to make her understand that they've crossed all the lines. That he doesn’t know where they are anymore.

"I want to tell you," she says, and she's crying now. "but I can't, they're--they're not all my secrets, and--and I don't want you to get hurt," --and Jack doesn't understand how to process what she's saying, because she's crying in earnest now and telling him that the only reason she left--the reason she left both times--was because she wanted to protect him, that there had been dangerous people after her but they were all gone now, she wanted to come back, she wanted to be with him, Jack, _please_. 

"It's okay," is what he ends up saying, stroking a hand mindlessly through her beautiful hair. "You're okay now. You're with me. It's okay."

"There's--there's something else I need to tell you," she tells him, hushed, and she looks truly scared now, brown eyes wide with fear.

 "Tell me," he says, and he's afraid, too.

"I," she gulps for breath, and one of her small golden hands drifts down to her abdomen, and he already knows.

*

A baby.

Jack's baby.

A _baby_.

*

"I'm sorry," she says, and "I forgive you," he says, and his hands are on her hands on her small rounded belly.

This is the script. This is what you say when you fight, what you have to do to make it work--because Jack will make this work. He knows what it's like to have a parent walk out on you, to have a parent decide that their life matters more than yours, and he won't do that to his own kid. He won't.

"I love you," she says.

"I love you too," he says.

*

Emily comes by that night, and it's like their conversation happened on another planet. There's something off about her--her lip's been split, and he feels a cold chill at the thought of Grayson losing his temper--but she's looking at him with careful happiness, and he remembers that he's the man who's going to hurt her, tonight.

He wants to tell her everything himself, but Amanda comes out early, coat cast aside, shining with happiness. He always forgets that she and Emily were friends. 

He forces himself to look at it all. He's never seen Emily look fragile before, but that's the only word for what she is when Amanda embraces her, for the stunned expression she turns on Jack, and then on Amanda's belly.

"Jack and I are gonna have a baby," Amanda says, and Jack smiles because he should, but his eyes and his throat hurt.

"…Wow," Emily says, almost inaudibly, and then she smiles, mask sliding imperfectly back on. "Congratulations. I'm--sure you both have a lot of catching up to do. I just wanted to--return the collar."

"I'll walk you to your car," Jack tries, because he wants to tell her--everything. That it's not her fault, that he wishes things were different, that he can't give up on Amanda Clarke, that he can't give up on family, that this is just how he was made. But--

"No," Emily says sharply, and then gives him a brief, devastating look. "Goodbye, Jack."

And then she's gone.

*

Nolan doesn't answer his phone for a month. 

Jack swings by his place once, but it's empty. Entirely possible Nolan's gone back to the city, he guesses. It was a strange, elongated season that took them all past summer into winter, after all.

When Jack's phone buzzes at four in the morning, after the bar's finally closed and Amanda's asleep beside him, he picks it up and heads downstairs on bare feet to answer.

"Hey," he says, and rests his head on the dark bar.

"Oh, hey," Nolan begins with deceptive lightness. Jack can already tell he's drunk. "How's it going? Knock up any more tramps, lately?" 

"It's late," Jack says evenly, "and you've clearly been drinking, so I'm going to forget you said that."

"I hear there's been some amnesia going around!" Nolan exclaims, lightly slurring his words. "For example, I forgot to tell you exactly what I'd do to you if you broke Emily's heart. That was a weird oversight on my part. I guess at the time I assumed you, you know, _wouldn't_." 

"Nolan," Jack begins, tiredly, but Nolan steamrolls right over him.

"You don't break this girl's heart, Jack," he says harshly, almost incoherent. "You have _no idea_ what she's been through--what she's capable of--she deserves so much more than _you_ , making her think she could have everything she's always wanted and then treating her like--like a fucking _joke_ \--"

"Don't tell me about what _Emily Thorne_ 's been through," Jack says, angry because as bad as he feels about hurting Emily, she's sitting on a golden throne with everything money can buy while Amanda's had to struggle through things Jack doesn't even want to think about. " _Amanda_ deserves better than to have somebody else abandon her, okay?" 

Nolan sucks in a breath, the kind of sound somebody makes when they’ve been punched. "But you don't love her," he whispers.

Jack's throat hurts. "It's my kid," he says hoarsely. "I have to stick this out. This is-- _family_.  I'm sorry if I hurt Emily, but. If there's anything I can do to make this work, I--I have to. Don't you get that?" 

There's a long pause, and then a sigh. "Yeah," Nolan says, sounding defeated. "Yeah, I do." 

"I'm sorry," Jack says, again. 

"I know you are," Nolan tells him, very softly, almost lost, like now that he isn't hurling accusations, he doesn't know what to think. "Look. Look, I'm back in Manhattan until the summer. But if you need anything, or--just let me know."

"Still your friend, then?" Jack risks. "Or do I need to pay you?"

"We're friends," Nolan says, still in that weird, soft voice. Like it's his heart Jack broke, and not hers. "But Emily's--Emily's special, okay?

"I understand," Jack says, even though he isn't sure he does.

Nolan gives him a stumbling apology for calling, and then hangs up.

Jack sits up in the dark for a long time.

*

It's difficult, living with Amanda. Where before she was whimsical, fun, spontaneous--now she seems reckless, impractical, frustrating. _An obligation_ , he catches himself thinking shamefully. 

It feels like living with a stranger.

He walks in on her once, lying in their bed in the middle of the day, watching pornography. Two blonde women fucking each other senseless. She switches it off and rolls over to look at him with unreadable eyes. He ends up leaving without saying anything, and that night she kisses him very sweetly, like an apology and an explanation all at once.

"We're gonna make this work," he tells her, over and over.

"We're gonna make this work," she repeats, like he's the only person she's ever been able to trust.

Declan treats Amanda with a weird mixture of irritation and protectiveness, like she's a burden he hates that they have to bear, but like the kid she's carrying is the most valuable thing they own. Jack gives up trying to talk to him about it.

He drinks more than he used to. He starts sleeping out on the boat, every other night or so, telling Amanda he has insomnia, that he doesn't want to keep her up. His things start creeping out there, one by one, and he falls asleep rocked by the water, whiskey clouding his brain, and wonders how to make this work.

*

It feels like the water warms and the sky clears all at once, and America's elite start trickling back into their white palatial homes away from home.  

Jack would be lying if he didn't say he was relieved when Nolan came back. 

"Ahoy, Captain Jack!"

Something that's been balled up tight inside Jack loosens at the playful sound of Nolan's voice, and he turns around, grinning.

Nolan's walking down the dock, sunny and smiling. "Or should I say--Jackdaddy?" he adds, and Jack figures that's as much of an apology as he's likely to get.

"Not for another four weeks," Jack says, and jumps down from the Amanda's railing to meet Nolan halfway. "It's good to see you, Nolan," he gets out, and then he's caught Nolan up in a hug. It's instinctive, thoughtless--what you do when you haven't seen friends in a few months. He hasn't hugged Nolan before though, has he?

Nolan lets loose a sort of breathless chuckle, and then his arms come up tight around Jack, so that he can feel Nolan's fingers pressing into his back, ten firm points of pressure--and then Nolan buries his head in Jack's neck, and--there's no other word for it--nuzzles him.

"Hah," Jack says, flinching back. "Mmkay." He can feel Nolan's smile start against his skin, and then sees it form the rest of the way when he pulls back. "…Back for another season?" Jack asks, brushing his hair out of his face, resettling himself.

Nolan looks perfectly comfortable. "We'll see what the summer holds," he says easily. "But, uh, I'm currently sort of Hamptons-homeless."

"You?" Jack asks, resisting the urge to rub his neck. "What happened?"

"I'm selling the house," Nolan tells him, like he should already know. "After everything that happened with Tyler, and…other stabby, strangle-y things…I'm in the market to upsize." 

Maybe Jack should have already known. "Well, you're welcome to stay on the boat," he says, the unbidden image of Nolan lounging in the mess of liquor bottles Jack woke up in this morning flashing into his head. "Hell, you're welcome to buy it again."

Nolan makes a dismissive face. "Well, Emily's cool with me--staying with her," he says with a small smile. "Temporarily. So."

Oh. "She's back?" Jack asks carefully.

"Oh," Nolan says, overly casual. "Yeah. You didn't know?"

"Been a little, uh. Preoccupied," Jack says vaguely. "These last few weeks."

"I can vouch for that," Amanda says behind him, and god, he'd forgotten she was there. "Hey, Nolan."

"Mandy!" Nolan exclaims with false pleasure, turning a wince into a smile at the last minute. At least some things don't change.

"Tell her to call us," Amanda tells him. "I'm dying to see her."

"I'm sure the feeling's mutual," Nolan says, practically dripping with disbelief. "Well." He looks back at Jack, and pats him on the shoulder, a brief sincere look settling onto his face, the kind of look that tells Jack he really was missed. "It's really good to see you." He pauses, and then looks back at Amanda to add a truly insincere "Both!" He gives them both a little wave, and walks away. 

"He hates me," Amanda says flatly.

"He'll come around," Jack tells her, and braces himself for the argument.

*

He walks into her room a day later and finds Emily standing at the window, looking somber.

"Emily," he says on an exhale, feeling like the air has been knocked out of his lungs.

"Hi, Jack." She gives him a small, composed smile, the kind of smile he's seen her give to the Graysons, to the press, to Daniel. "It's good to see you."  

"You too," he says automatically, and Amanda grabs his hand, squeezing. He drags his eyes away from Emily to her, and Amanda's face is tight and uneasy. "Everything okay?"

Neither of them answers, which is answer enough. "What's wrong?" he asks on instinct.

"Amanda," Emily says after a moment, her voice a little rough. "Should you tell Jack, or should I?"

"Go for it," Amanda says into the tense pause, and she isn't nearly as good as Emily, an unhappy look flickering across her face.

Emily tells him with that eerie, practiced smile that Amanda asked her to be the baby's godmother. Jack can't help the huff of disbelief he lets out, not when Amanda's still holding iron-tight to his hand, and Emily's smiling at him like a Stepford wife.

"You want to tell me what's really going on?" he asks, keeping his voice quiet.

"That is the truth," Amanda says quickly. She gives him a quick flash of a miserable smile, and then Emily's making quiet excuses, blonde hair bright and shining and out the door, and he's still staring at Amanda, who still won't meet his eyes.

"It is the truth," she says again, hands folding over her belly. "We just--we talked about some other stuff first. About, um. About her and you."

"Oh," Jack says, a weight dropping into his stomach. He can imagine what they talked about. "You--still wanted to ask her?"

"She's my friend," Amanda tells the floor, in a weirdly soft voice. "And yours. Who else was I gonna ask?"

Jack doesn't say anything, and Amanda nods a few times, not saying anything either.

"I gotta get back downstairs," he says finally, and walks away.

*

The fight doesn't come until later, when he's trying to scrape off the worst of the mould under the stairs before the health inspector shows.

"You're really gonna do this yourself?" Amanda asks, coming up behind him.

He stays focused on the stairs. "Don't really have a choice."

"Is that how you feel about me, too?" she asks, sharply.

"Amanda," he says, barely audible even to himself. "Don't, don't say stuff like that."

She comes closer, just over his shoulder. "We're both faking it, aren't we?" He starts, almost more from the honesty in her voice than the words themselves. "I mean. That's why you've been spending all those nights on the boat. Right?"

"…No," Jack hears himself saying, distantly. "Not exactly."

"Then what?" she says. How does he tell her that he's just trying to do right by everyone, that he doesn't understand how not to love her but he isn't sure that he does, that family is the most important thing in the world and he knows that, that he's been dreading the summer for months, has been dreading Emily's smile and Nolan's eyes?  

"Jack," she's saying, sincere and stumbling, "Once the baby comes--he's gonna need stability." Of course he will. He'll need a father, he'll need Jack. He knows that. "Me too," she finishes, and there's an implied threat there: she could always leave again, take the baby and go somewhere with more stability, leave Jack with two ghosts instead of one. Maybe it's not a threat. Maybe it's a promise.

"You're right," he says, because she is. She's right. "If we're gonna be a family we need to start living like a family. 

She gives him a heartbreakingly honest smile, watery and relieved, and he does love her, he does. He just needs to be stronger. No more room for doubt. Not now.

*

Things move so quickly after that.

Jack keeps his promise: he's there for Amanda, he'll be there for their baby, and she gives him quiet proof that the baby is his. And she's Amanda, and he loves her, and he tells himself to accept that this was always going to be his life.

It's not that everything's happy, now, or easy. Jack gets angry all the time: angry at the Graysons, angry at the state of the bar, the state of his life, angry at Amanda for all her secrets. There are so _many_ secrets. So many ties to the most horrible people Jack's ever known, so many threads and he can't even begin to keep track of them, because she won't _tell_ him. But it's still somehow simple, because he's made a promise, and he will not break it.

Emily and Nolan stay almost as close as they always have been, but showing up together more often than before, always in unison, always so in synch, twin blonde heads bent together over the bar, never quite touching. Amanda joins them whenever she can, which surprises Jack until he realizes that Nolan is still unfriendly and unhappy. It's just Emily who's welcoming.

"So, you and Emily have gotten close," he tells Amanda casually.

She shrugs. "She's my best friend," she says, and he's gotten good at measuring the truth in her voice, because he knows she's being completely honest. "You know, like Nolan's yours? I guess we've both got a half of the dream team."

Jack laughs, but it occurs to him later, as it often occurs to him these days, that she's right. Somehow, without him ever really noticing when, Emily and Nolan have become the best friends they've ever had. He's grateful nothing ever really happened with Emily, that he never really cut Nolan off, that it's not just him and Amanda and his little brother and a baby coming, alone against the storm.  

He tells himself he doesn't feel the unhappy weight that settles in his belly the first time he sees Emily with Aiden. Because she looks honest and settled with him the way he's never seen her look with anyone, and Aiden looks as grateful to have her as any man should, although his hands do settle on her body with a kind of possessiveness that Jack dislikes, large hands cupping the back of her neck, catching the curve of her elbows, spread wide on her small back.

"What do you think of him?" he asks Nolan, once, nodding over at Aiden, both his hands wrapped around Emily's waist. 

Nolan makes a face. "Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsy?" he asks with pretend lightness, even though Jack can _see_ his eyes tracing Aiden's hands on Emily's skin, recognize the ache that makes Nolan's hand tighten briefly on his drink. "Eh."

"I know you like to be the one dishing out advice," Jack says carefully, "but for the sake of fairness, if nothing else--she's not gonna wait for you forever, man."

Nolan chokes on his cocktail, and turns to Jack with wide eyes. "-- _Emily_?" he says, sounding honestly shocked. "You think I'm--and _Emily_?"

Jack shrugs, feeling his ears start to burn. "Am I wrong?" he asks. He wonders if it would be easier, watching Nolan's hand slide over Emily's hair, or if the ache would be the same.

But Nolan's laughing breathlessly, like Jack's an idiot for even suggesting it. "I'm not James Bond's biggest fan," he says, with a patronizing little smile. "But Emily is. Why don't we leave it there, so I don't have to define the word 'transference' for you."

"Whatever you need to tell yourself, man," Jack says, because Nolan's fingers are still clenched around the stem of his martini glass 

It's not a full week before Nolan comes back to the bar, this time with a girl, someone Jack's never seen before.

"Jack, this is Padma," Nolan says casually, and then leads her back to a table--Nolan always sits at the bar--and orders food.

Jack thinks for a while that maybe they're just working--they've both pulled out iPads, and Padma certainly looks brisk and competent, even if she is laughing most of the time, her body angled towards Nolan. Nolan's flirting with her, definitely, but Nolan flirts with everyone.  

Up until she tries to steal a french fry from Nolan's plate, and he catches her wrist gently. She laughs again, and Nolan draws her hand up to his mouth, presses a soft kiss to the dimple at the base of her palm.

Jack feels sick, jealousy bubbling up in his chest like poison, and Padma doesn't blush, or laugh, doesn't give any sign that this is something new. Instead she looks at Nolan with poorly disguised tenderness, and chucks him lightly under the chin with one slim finger.

"Hey, Bo, I'm gonna take my break now," Jack says, and gets the hell out.

*

He sees Nolan with Padma a lot, after that.

*

He and Amanda are fighting when she brings it up.  

They're in their bedroom, Jack sitting on the bed, Amanda pacing by the window, one hand on her abdomen, the other yanking at her hair, as if it will help to keep her angry.

He's angry that she's still accepting favors from the Graysons--angry that she still lies to him, even if it is about small things, because he remembers blood on the sand, Amanda there in the dark, and she wasn't careful then and she isn't being careful now and she has to protect their baby. Her secrets are about more than just her now.

She's angry that he doesn't believe her, doesn't trust her, accuses him of trying to control her, of trying to dig into her past when that's what she's trying to protect them from.

It's not a new argument. What's new is when Amanda whirls around and snaps: "Well, at least I'm not jealous of Nolan Ross's girlfriend."

 Jack freezes. "I'm not," he says blankly.

"You _are_ ," she tells him, stepping close so that he has to look into her eyes.

"Maybe I am," he says, and rushes past the anger in her eyes, letting his hands come up to cup her shoulders. "Maybe I'm jealous of the fact that they look happy whenever they're together. Maybe I'm jealous that my best friend is happy when things with us are--complicated." Maybe he's jealous of the way Nolan is sweet with Padma, not the way Jack had thought he'd be with a lover. He'd imagined Nolan with Tyler--imagined him lewd and cruel and sarcastic. Nolan and Padma are soft with each other, all small smiles and careful touches and the way she kissed him outside the bar, the way Nolan melted into it.  

"You're lying to me," she says, small and miserable, and he can't bear it when she cries so he draws her in, Amanda curling next to him on the bed, her face wet against his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he says over and over again, stroking her back, her beautiful hair, the broad curve of her belly. "I'm not lying to you, I love you, I'm sorry." 

She kisses him, fierce and promising, because she's never gotten tired of sex, not once in six months. She tastes like tears.

"I'm sorry," he whispers again, and she wrestles him out of his clothes, kicks her own jeans to the side.

She waits until he's in her, until they're both naked and sweating and close: Jack flat on his back, hands stroking up her hips, Amanda with her hands braced on his chest, rocking up and down.

"So, do you want to fuck him?" she asks, breathless, and Jack groans, grabbing hold of her hips. "You want him, just like this? Him riding you? 

"No," Jack grits out, and she lets out a wobbling laugh that turns into a moan. "I don't, I."  

"Yeah," she says, panting, "yeah, you do. You want to fuck Nolan Ross's ass, don't you?"

He surges up to sitting, desperate to make her stop, and it's sweaty and awkward and beyond hot, Amanda saying filthy, horrible things, belly huge between them, and he kisses her just to shut her up. 

"You want--you want his mouth?" she breathes against Jack's lips, eyes heavy-lidded, and god, he's thinking about that now, Nolan's pink sarcastic mouth-- "Wrapped around your cock. Bet he's good. Bet he's had lots of practice."

Jack lets out a sound he doesn't want to admit to and slides a hand between them and rubs until she's shivering too badly to talk, until she goes soft in his arms, and he wants to tell her that he's there with her, only with her, but he's still right there, riding the edge, and Nolan's mouth is still right there behind his eyes. "No," is all he manages. 

"Maybe not," she whispers, and he thinks for a brief second, straining up into her, that she's granting him mercy, but of course she isn't. "Maybe you want him to fuck you," she finishes, and that's _wrong_ , he doesn't, he doesn't want that _,_ but he gulps in a huge breath of air and comes like a freight train anyway.

*

"That wasn't okay," Jack says, after.

"Don't lie to me," is all Amanda says, turned away from him. He wants to call her on her hypocrisy, but he can't, not right now. 

"I love you," he says, staring at the ceiling. 

She turns over, looks at him with unreadable eyes. "I love you too," she says.

* 

They fight again the next day.

And the day after that. 

* 

And then Jack gets a call that Amanda's in the hospital, and it feels like his chest explodes with panic. He breaks every law in the book getting there as fast as he can, and Emily's there, white and scared, and the doctors ask him if it comes down to it, do they want him to save the mother or the child.

"The baby," Emily says before Jack has time to process the question, hard and certain. "She told me," she explains to Jack with uncharacteristic awkwardness. "It's what she wants."

Jack nods, not because he agrees, but because having someone else take charge is the only relief possible, at this point.

Sitting in the hospital. Declan's there, Charlotte's there. Nolan's holding his right hand, and Emily has one palm tentatively resting on Jack's shoulder. "I love her," he's telling them, in a stunned voice. "This. This can't happen."  

A doctor comes out, and asks Jack if he wants to see his son.

*  
  
His son is small, and pink, and he looks vaguely like Winston Churchill, and he terrifies Jack more than anyone in the world. More than Nolan with his hand resting between Jack's shoulder blades, more than Emily, stepping smoothly ahead to talk to the doctors, more than Amanda lying still in a hospital bed. 

"I have a kid," Jack says out loud, his heart pounding in his ears. "He's mine."

"He is," Emily agrees softly. "He's all yours."

The fear might swallow him alive.  

* 

Amanda wakes up, and he's never loved her more.

Amanda's mother shows up, holds the baby once or twice, and then vanishes. The Ryan brothers are doing a great job helping Jack get the bar re-opened. Emily and Aiden break up. Jack barely notices any of it, because he has to concentrate on the baby and Amanda. It's amazing how fragile they both seem, like they'll disappear if Jack loses focus, even for a minute.

He lets Amanda choose the baby's name 

"Carl," she says, soft and thoughtful. "For your dad." 

"How about David for the middle name," he suggests, and a strange look crosses her face. 

"Amanda?"

"It's perfect," she says finally, stroking a finger down Carl's tiny arm.

*

"I used to think of you as a ghost," he tells Amanda, her head on his shoulder, the baby asleep against his chest, the ocean spread out wide and beautiful before them. They're sitting at the beach, because Amanda wanted to see the sunset. Nobody else is around, for once. It's beautiful.  

"How was I like a ghost?" she asks, relaxed.  

"You know," Jack says, closing his eyes. "Haunting me.  Disappearing. Always spoke your name in, uh. Hushed whispers."

She laughs, softly. "Not going anywhere," she says, dropping a quick kiss to the top of Carl's head. "Either of us."

"Swear," Jack says.

"I swear," Amanda says.

I’m going to marry this woman, Jack realizes, his arm tightening around her. I’m going to put my mother’s ring on her finger, and she’s going to stay with me, and we’re going to raise our son in my father’s house. We’re going to make it past the tragedy. We’re going to make it.

Way out by the boardwalk, a man and a woman are walking together. He can just make out the white of the woman’s dress, the yellow of her hair. It’s Emily, he thinks, suddenly and strangely sure. Emily, with her hands gripping the railing, pale and untouchable. Which means the man standing just behind her must be Nolan, his hand reaching out as though he’d like to rest it on her shoulder, then drawing back at the last second. He wonders for a paranoid moment if they’re watching him.

Amanda yawns.  
  
“Come on,” Jack says, putting it out of his mind. “Let’s go home.”  
  
They have living to do. 


End file.
